Brooks urges Mitch Daniels to run for president

David Brooks urged Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to run for president in his New York Times column published online Thursday.

In his opinion piece, he alludes to a question-and-answer session Daniels had with the Yale-led Student Initiative to Draft Daniels earlier this month, to which the News had exclusive access. Brooks writes:

On Feb. 11, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana met with a group of college students. According to The Yale Daily News, he told them that there is an “excellent chance” he will not run for president. Then he mounted the podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference and delivered one of the best Republican speeches in recent decades.

The issue Republicans face with Daniels, Brooks writes, is that “the man who would be the party’s strongest candidate for the presidency is seriously thinking about not running.”

Daniels is yet to announce whether he will run in the Republican presidential primaries, which begin in February. But he told the News last month he would decide in the “next couple of months”, adding that if he does not decide soon it would be too late to mount a viable campaign.

Still, he said in the question-and-answer session that if he chooses to run, he “will go all out.”

Michael Knowles ’12, the political director of the Student Initiative to Draft Daniels, said he was excited about the growing support for a potential Daniels bid.

“An endorsement like that is pretty much the best way the New York Times could say hello to Mitch Daniels and we could not be more pleased with it,” he said.